The Berg Theory: A scalar–tensor energy web as a common foundation of space–time, gravitation, quantum phenomena, and entropy

The Berg Theory proposes a unified description of fundamental physics based on a single complex scalar field, interpreted as a connected energy web in curved spacetime. Instead of treating spacetime, gravitation, matter, quantum phenomena, and entropy as separate fundamental entities, the theory explores whether they can all emerge as different organised regimes of one underlying field. The measurable non-negative quantity (the operational field strength, defined as the square of the absolute value of the complex field) serves as the central link between the field dynamics and observable physics. This strength appears directly in laboratory and cosmological readouts, while the full complex field carries both amplitude and phase information. A Jordan-frame curvature prefactor links the field dynamics to geometry. This Core Article establishes the common kernel of the framework. It defines the foundational field and metric equations, the canonical normalization for weak-field limits, the vacuum baseline, and the shared result architecture. Gravitation is read operationally as sourced geometry (with spatial shortening as its primary observable signature), matter as durable bound structures of the same field, light as a propagating wave mode, and the macroscopic arrow of time as associated with irreversible coarse-graining and entropy-producing processes. A central methodological goal is scientific auditability. The theory follows a shared-burden approach: the same prefactor and branch identity must remain consistent across local gravity, cosmological drift, growth-lensing-slip relations, gravitational-wave propagation, and coherence tests. Predictions are only considered meaningful when tied to explicit observables, clear translation rules to data, and well-defined failure conditions. Independent sector-by-sector retuning after seeing the data is explicitly excluded. Version 7 strengthens the Core in two key respects: it sharpens the visible result architecture with a stable packet structure (R1–R9), and it introduces an explicit local numerical benchmark in Appendix A — a frozen same-branch package containing a direct diagonal geometry solution together with a nonlinear mixed-sector extension on the same refinement ladder. The broader work is developed in a numbered addendum series covering vacuum structure, dark-regime support, electromagnetic transport, fluctuation stiffness, spatial shortening, matter formation, closed-branch cosmology, coherence management, and cross-probe closure. This Core Article remains the common foundation and anchored reference for the entire series.